


Liquid Eyeliner and Wood Heat

by femmenerd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-05
Updated: 2007-03-05
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:41:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7805878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmenerd/pseuds/femmenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You don’t entirely get the joke, but you smile back anyway.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liquid Eyeliner and Wood Heat

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, remember when @[halfhardtorock](http://archiveofourown.org/users/halfhardtorock/pseuds/halfhardtorock) dared me to write a Mary Sue fic? Well, I kind of failed by either definition, because the girl in this isn’t perfect nor really me. This story does have mix-matched scraps and flavors in it that come from my world though.

It’s Friday and you’re putting on your sure-fire sexy clothes, shivering because the coals in the wood stove burned down while you were at work. It’s not that this outfit is actually all that tarty, but everyone’s got their _thing_ that tricks them into feeling hot, right? And yours is denim tight on your hips rolled up over tall boots, faded black T-shirt, and lipgloss, eye-makeup dark. The best jeans always come second-hand from a brother or lover or father–from a man who loves you, and these ones are remnants from the your ex’s dad, the ex you still like. So many denim-on-denim patches they’re like armor, and you feel protected. Your boots make you taller. It works.

It’s too much for out here in the boondocks but some habits are hard to shake. And besides you feel like a girl in a country song, with a little rocker mixed in, alt country perhaps.

Liquid eyeliner and wood heat. City living changes you, but not too much.

It’s been years of the same flick up at the corner of your eyes but you almost fuck it up, hand shaking ‘cause your knuckles are stiff with December. When you’re done you lean back and survey your face, making dorky mirror-faces to amuse yourself. The thing about having freckles is that you’ll never actually look all _that_ tough. That’s just how it goes.

You walk through your perfume, remembering the teenage era boyfriend you had who used to tease you saying that there was bobcat piss in Chanel #5. Even back then you were dreaming big city. Yet somehow you’re back here again, with a cabin to yourself–in limbo. You sniff the air dreamily. Even though everyone else always wears faded Carharrt and the boys from always have beards before you’ve all hit thirty, some things remind you of your other lives in a town where everything but the bars closes before ten.

You get to the brewery. Your friends are late, so you order a drink, trying for an Old Fashioned but the girl doesn’t know what that is. You patiently explain crushing oranges and sugar and a splash of bitters, Irish whiskey for you not bourbon.

“Lady knows what she wants,” says a smiling voice, rough, boyish, you can tell already even though you can’t see him.

“About this anyway...” you say, and look over. “Where’d you come from?” you find yourself asking point blank because words have this habit of exiting your mouth before you’ve thought them through. He’s tall and beautiful and you’ve never seen him before and in a town this small that’s weird.

“Um, everywhere?” he says, and sips his beer, shaggy, brown hair falling forward. You want to touch it, but you’re not drunk yet.

“Okay, but what are you doing here? Shit, am I asking too many questions? Sorry, I’m having a weird life. It affects my ability to edit.”

Boy grins at that. Toothy, lovely. “That’s all right,” he says, laughing at you. “But um. Shit. Look, okay, I can’t tell you, but I’m too tired right now to come up with something good so can we just leave it at that?”

You consider it, pursing your mouth, deciding. “Well, that’s the most _honest_ form of secrecy I’ve ever heard so okay.” You hold up a chipped nailpolish finger and continue, “But just tell me it doesn’t involve rape or murder and I’ll let it go...and not run screaming either.”

“Neither of the above,” he says, and waits a beat. “So Ms. Nosypants, what are _you_ doing here?”

“I’m _from_ here,” you say, scrunching up your nose. “But I don’t know, really. Over there at that table? High school teachers. And over there? Half my first grade class. Most of them have babies now. So yeah, you stick out.”

“I don’t know what that’s like,” the guy says. “We moved around a lot when I was a kid.”

“You and...”

“My dad and my brother--he’s over there.” He points. You squint. There’s a ridiculously hot guy smirking at the bartender–who is that chick who used to date Travis, you realize now. This brother-guy looks kind of like your first love. You don’t really care.

“My brother is my favorite human,” you say. “We used to convince people we were twins.”

“Dean tries to convince people we’re all kinds of things, still,” he says, and grins.

You don’t entirely get the joke, but you smile back anyway.

****

Your friends show up and you love them, feel it pulsing through you as they babble on about snow and their jobs and _Did you know that so-and-so got a restraining order and Sarah is sleeping with Rebecca’s dad?_ Small towns are chock to the brim with scandal.

Sam’s brother–Sam, his name is Sam–gives up on Travis’s ex and lopes over, strutting like every gorgeous, shiny boy you used to torture yourself over when you were younger. Amy immediately jumps on him–because that’s what she does now–and you’re relieved. She’s flipping her hair and making fuck-me eyes and you think that you don’t even know how to do that anymore.

Before you know it, you’re a few more than tipsy and blurting out some of the more embarrassing remember-whens in your collective history. Sam seems amused, but he doesn’t talk more than he needs to, just glides in and out of the conversation. It makes you feel comfortable, not like you shouldn’t be–this is your place, your people, you remind yourself. But lately, beautiful people you don’t know make you squirm; they make your heart contract in fear.

When brother-guy–Dean–and Amy do the inevitable and start making out in a corner, you crack up, with your signature snort and everything. You can’t stop.

Sam quirks a brow, darting a glance over at his brother. No one else seems to get the connection; after all, spontaneously laughing like a braying horse is something you’re known for.

You whisper into his ear, “Amy’s the first girl I ever slept with.”

“And that’s funny?”

“Um,” you say, pulling away a bit, “everything’s kind of funny right now.”

He shrugs goodnaturedly, but you clap your hand over your mouth. “God, you totally think I’m a big slut now, don’t you?”

But Sam just leans over, filling your nostrils with _boy_ , and says, “No, I just think you’ve lived here a long time.”

“Actually, I left for years and years and years.” Hiccup.

“Yeah? Where’d you go?”

“I ran away...to college. And then more college, and now I’m here again.”

“Why’d you come back?” He sounds like he really wants to know so you tell him the real answer, not the one you’ve been practicing for everyone you see on the street.

“Well, I’m trying to figure out if more college is really what I need. What do you want to be when you grow up, Sam?”

“Me,” he says, and you nod vigorously.

“I want to be the most ‘me’ I can possibly be. Oh, and write books. That’s the only thing I’ve ever been certain of. Don’t ask me what kind though.”

“Deal,” Sam says, but he’s looking over across the wooden benches to where his brother is sending some kind of bizarre signal or something through hand gestures.

“Is that the secret symbol for ‘I’m gonna go fuck Amy now?’” you ask.

And then Sam _really_ laughs and it’s wonderful. “Yeah, it totally is.”

“You can come home with me, if you want," you say, almost immediately feeling crazy afterwards. You can feel the blushes heating up your skin. "I mean, I’ve got a couch.”

“Okay,” he says, and you can breathe again. “That’d be cool.”

*****

“I think you should let me drive,” Sam says, and you know he’s right but you pout anyway.

“You out-of-staters never know how to drive on our roads.”

“Yeah, and you drunk girls have a tendency to go off the road,” he replies, stealing your keys out of your red-gloved hand.

Sam can hardly get into the driver’s side, because he’s so _big_ and you’re a crazy, control freak person who drives with the seat all the way up.

In the car you tell him, “I used to live in California,” apropos of nothing. “I moved there to get away from the cold.” You shiver, holding your hands up to the heat vent.

“So did I,” he says. “I went to Stanford.”

“Santa Cruz,” you answer, though he didn’t ask.

“Hippie,” Sam says, and you laugh, feeling warmer.

“You bet your ass. Born on a commune. Raised on tempeh. The whole bit.”

“My girlfriend had friends like that.” Sam’s taking the turns expertly, going slow when he needs to like he knows about black ice.

“Your...?” And you hate the question in your voice.

“She died,” he says, and you’re quiet for a second, contemplating his laconic truthfulness, the resigned pain in his voice.

“Do you ever think...” you start. “Do you ever think that sometimes the crappiest part about telling people hard stuff is worrying that they’ll freak out and you’ll have to take care of _them_ about it?”

“I don’t–I don’t really tell people stuff all that often,” he says.

“Oh.” You gulp. “Thanks.”

You can see him almost-smiling even though. It makes you want to eat him up.

Because there are dimples. And you are drunk.

*****

It’s cold inside your cabin. The fire went out again while you were out. You groan, kicking off your boots clumsily and grumbling to yourself about why the _hell_ you ever left California. When you look up, Sam is smiling down at you and you feel incredibly dorky, exposed.

But he says, “Hey, where’s your newspaper and kindling?” and you forget about all of that for a second because it is so nice to not have to mess with the stove for once.

You point to the corner of the room gratefully and ask, “Do you, um, do you want some tea or something?”

“Sure,” he says, rolling up his sleeves, “what’ve you got?”

You bite your lip. “Everything.” You pause, watching him, wondering where he learned to do this. Was he a boy scout? Is there some “country” in that “everywhere” where he said he was from? Does he want to kiss you?

You come back to yourself and clear your throat. “I’m not kidding. I pretty much do have every kind of tea in known creation.”

“Okay,” he says, not looking up from the fire-building. “Do you have Sleepytime?”  
  
“Yeah!” you rush. “I mean, yes, hang on a second.” _Sleepytime?_ Well, there’s your answer, you decide. Definitely doesn’t want to kiss you. He wants to take a nap.

But it’s cute–big, tall man-boy wanting herbal tea. You sway as you put the kettle on, still drunkish.

“I don’t do this,” you actually say, plopping down on the couch and handing him a mug. You clutch your Red Zinger to your chest. “Bring strange men home with me. Or you know, not ones that I don’t already _know._ But–” You lean in conspiratorially. “There’s something about you. It makes me want to tell you secrets.”

“You’ve got secrets?” Sam asks.

“Everyone’s got secrets." Then you yawn.

******

You wake up with your head on Sam’s shoulder, drooling. You’re both spread out like lazy kittens on your grandmother’s old blue couch. There’s morning-light coming in through the window. Hand to your mouth–morning breath–you bury yourself into his armpit, embarrassed. But strangely rested, no hangover. "I'm...sorry," you whisper into the soft fabric of his shirt.  
  
“It’s okay,” Sam says, forcibly lifting your head with both hands. “It was nice...falling asleep...with someone.”

“Yeah,” you breathe, and he kisses you abruptly, mouth as sour as yours. Warm. Tongue getting more slippery as you swirl together.

“Is this...?” he mumbles into your mouth, and you nod yes before your mouth can say no, pulling his hand roughly to the buzzing crotch of your jeans. That’s how it happens.

You’re both awkward and eight AM horny, bumping noses and snuffling sounds as your clothes come off. It’s hurried, yet almost casual like you’re a day-to-day couple with half an hour before the alarm goes off, but you’re excited like too many cups of coffee and wet as a fifteen-year-old who’s done nothing but heavy petting after school for months on end. Anticipating.

But you don’t know each other at all.

He makes you feel tiny, big brown hands spanning across even your size-ten hips. And you laugh, squealing when he bites your nipple pinker, chuckling low as he curses softly, working the condom on with care. But once he’s in you, you go quiet, listening to his laboring breath above you, pushing back and _staring_.

“God, you’re hot like that.” You hear your own voice. That too is something you don’t do.

“Thanks,” he says sheepishly, but angles up into you hard. You remember to moan–that _is_ something that you do.

*****

His brother calls, after. You’re making oatmeal with raisins and maple syrup and more tea, black this time. Two bowls, two more mugs. They don’t match–you let your ex take the good ones.

An old muscle car roars up into your driveway, too soon. “He’s gonna want to get that car as far away from New England as possible if he wants to avoid rust. There’s a reason we don’t have sexy cars here.” You’re staring out the window at the car, not looking at Sam.

“There’s sexy girls though,” he says, coming up behind you and leaning down to nuzzle your neck. “Shit, that was cheesy,” he laughs out. “I sound like Dean.”

“Okay,” you say, hearing him disappear back to wherever he came from.

“‘S true though,” he continues, setting the hairs on the back of your neck on end with his breath, and you turn around, getting on your tippy-toes to kiss him. It confuses you though, because goodbye kisses are for lovers.

Sam taps your nose and smiles, looking sad. The horn outside honks, and he gulps. “This was...I’m glad.”

*****

You agree–he reminded you what it feels like to want things.

*****

 

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